1. Gothic | PC | 2nd Jan | 30h | ★★★★☆
I finally got the incentive I needed to play this game after watching
A Love Letter to GOTHIC's Open World Design. In this regard it didn't disappoint. Somehow, every part of the open world seems intentional. I particularly liked how every pack of enemies felt like a vital resource for experience and items. Terrible combat and bugs with a rushed and buggy latter-game but, overall, a rich and gratifying rpg experience that many games today could learn from.
2. Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations | NDS | 15th Jan | 20h | ★★★★☆
A fantastic third installment to the original trilogy. Great music, great characters and more twists than a Spanish soap opera.
3. Battlefield 1 | PC | 1st Feb | 23h | ★☆☆☆☆
This game feels like a Sisyphean hell devised for the punishment of Counter Strike players who were too verbally abusive during their time on Earth. An eternity of holding a sprint button before getting blindsided on your way to an objective; map control a distant and bitter memory from other, better designed, games. I actually had a lot of fun in my 100+ hours of Bad Company 2 back in the day, which I credit to more consumate map design.
4. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Crushing) | PS4 | 3rd Feb | 10h | ★★★☆☆
I love the first half or so of this game. The gameplay starts to become unstuck in Syria though. Restrictive combat arenas and unflinching enemies undermine the potentially fluid gameplay of the Uncharted series, validating the series's most unfavourable, and often underdeserved, perception: chest-high wall simulator. Despite that there are fantastic sections throughout and the spectacle and the banter dazzle and entertain.
5. Nioh | PS4 | 25th Feb | 61h | ★★★★☆
Nioh's attack animations are the best. There are few games where executing basic combos gives me such visceral gratification. Although a From clone in many respects, there are some contributions to the action genre that are unique and engaging: zone control in the form of Yokai realm(/s?), timed stamina recovery and a fully fledged loot system complete with smithing, enhancement, item abilities, ability inheritence etc. Unfortunately, I think the difficulty balance is quite wonky in places. Once you master the mechanics, most humanoid bosses become trivially easy in the late-game until they start throwing 2 at you at once, forcing you to resort to cheap tactics. Said cheap-tactics can also completely trivialise the game if you don't resist the temptation to use them.
6. Bloodborne: The Old Hunters | PS4 | 28th Feb | 12h | ★★★★★
Playing Nioh made me want to replay Bloodborne again. So I ran another character through the dlc and most of the main game. Bloodborne is just a clear winner for best game of all time for me. No other game strikes such a perfect blend of agency, challenge, mastery and atmosphere.
7. Dark Souls: The Ringed City | PC | 2nd April | 10.5h | ★★★★☆
I was let down by the initial area but not by the proceeding ones. The ending blew me away. Sad to see Dark Souls go but it's clear that From Software need a clean creative slate.
8. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade | GBA Android | 3rd April | 35h | ★★★★☆
Playing this with save-states is definitely cheating. However, abusing the RNG to maximise level-up stat bonuses became an obsession that utlimately diminished my enjoyment. I'm looking forward to playing a FE game without the temptation to explore all possible permutations at any given juncture. That aside, the mechanics were tight; as I'd expect from the same studio who made Advance Wars. I'll probably skip the more anime games on the 3DS and go straight to Echoes or the upcoming Switch entry though.
9. Zelda: Breath of the Wild | Switch | 14th April | 105h | ★★★★★
This game feels like being a kid again and visiting someone else's house. You get to run around and explore the garden, climb some trees, poke about for frogs in the pond, pick up a stick, get bored of the stick, find a better one and so on. Absolute freedom. I love that the creativity applies to the combat too. Which is suprisingly engaging for a Zelda game. What was up with that terrible voice-acting though? As a brit, I was thoroughly uninpressed at the attempts at classical English.
10. Nier: Automata | PS4 | 12th May | 40h | ★★★☆☆
I was actually quite disappointed with Nier: Automata. I love that it plays with genre and narrative structure. There's also some killer music, voice-acting and animation work in there as well. But the combat and story fell flat for me. The combat because the enemy design doesn't encourage any particular strategy other than the occasional dodge and the story because the lack of a strong overarching plot. To expand on the storytelling: it feels like Yoko Taro wrote a bunch of moments that he felt were impactful but were undermined by their detatchment from an overarching plot. The original Nier, by comparison, had a central, engaging core from which all other events derived context and therefore meaning.
11. Final Fantasy Tactics | VITA | 28th May | 43h | ★★★★★
What a classic. The praise is well-deserved. Characters with complex and sympathetic motivations and some consummate faux-Shakespearean dialogue. A refreshing contrast from the maudlin dross that dominants the genre. The rpg systems were flexible and rewarding and the strategy gameplay was tight.
12. Shovel Knight: Spector of Torment | VITA | 1st June | 6h | ★★★☆☆
I liked the agility of Spector Knight. I didn't like how he kept accidentally sticking to walls. I preferred the airtight gameplay of the original but overall a pretty good time.
13. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas | PS4 | 25th June | 33h | ★★★★★
I like open-world games that have fun mobility options and allow the player to chill out between activities instead of constantly overwhelming them with ungratifying busy work. San Andreas is pretty much perfect in this respect. Rockstar had clearly made the effort to vary the gameplay for each main story mission which kept it fresh. The difficulty of some of the longer missions without checkpoints was initially frustrating but I actually ended up appreciating the tension.
14. Mario Kart 8 | Switch | 30th June | 40h | ★★★★★
For moment-to-moment gameplay I don't think Mario Kart can be beat. Corner sliding, boosting through shortcuts and avoiding attacks is just the perfect blend of reactive skill, control and strategy. 40 hours was the time it took me to get 3 stars in all Grand Prix but this will be the go-to multiplayer game for a good time yet.
15. System Shock 2 | PC | 1st July | 12h | ★★★★★
This was like Bioshock meets Dead Space with Doom's running speed. Atmosphere in spades and some surprising level design given the spaceship setting.
16. Crash Bandicoot | PS4 | 5th July | 6h | ★★★☆☆
A fun platformer with more jank than I remember. Dodgy collision detection and input latency slightly undermined the experience.
17. Super Mario Galaxy 2 | Dolphin | 15th July | 21h | ★★★★☆
Lots of charm and creativity in SMG2. It felt like there was a new idea for almost every star. Loved the castle time trials. I found the individual levels a little short for my liking, however. And I think I just don't find the weighty controls of Mario games as fun as twitchier platformers. I managed all 120 gold stars but didn't bother with hunting for the green ones.
18. Ori and the Blind Forest | PC | 20th July | 11h | ★★★★★
Fast, fluid and responsive platforming with beautiful and dynamic visuals. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
19. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood | Wii VC | 1st August | 8h | ★★★★★
My first classicvania. When I took out the first boss and got that Dark Souls rush I knew I'd been missing out. I've found myself humming along to the soundtrack while playing.
20. Earthbound | SNES Android | 4th August | 30h | ★★★★☆
Despite having played some of the games inspired by Earthbound, this still felt unique. It has a certain almost inexplicable quality to it; a tone that's ironic yet sincere, surreal and deeply nostalgic. I'm generally not a fan of turn-based rpgs and Earthbound didn't do a great deal to elevate itself above its peers in the gameplay department. I could listen to the Sky Runner theme for hours.
21. Vagrant Story | VITA | 30th Aug | 34h | ★★★★☆
Vagrant Story is beautiful, poorly designed and extremly engrossing. The gorgeous low-poly aesthetic and lonely atmosphere of this cult classic has long had me curious but I'd failed several times to push through the frustration of the initial few hours. The tutorials do not adequately explain the intricacies of the workshop, the relative importances of affinity, class and type, the impact of dp/pp or any of the many reasons your meticulously planned weapon is dealing 1 damage to its intended target. Even online resources can't always be trusted here; such is the cryptic nature of the mechanics.
Occasional victories of mechanics mastery were hard-won but felt equally rewarding. Unfortunately, the post-boss stat growth roulette was also against me. Half way through my playthrough my agility had barely moved from its base level meaning I was constantly missing attacks. My luck changed with +3 agility from a boss followed by two agility elixirs dropping. At this point, I'd gained a solid understanding of the mechanics, amassed a versatile collection of grips, blades and elemental gems and mastered the timing of chain attacks. The difficulty promptly broke and I flipped from scraping by to god mode before slapping me in the face with a enourmous difficulty spike at the last boss.
Overall a unique experience of overcoming adversity with incredible presentation. However, I can't call it a 5/5 because a) your masteey of the mechanics mean nothing when you don't have the requisite weapon parts + gems on your first playthrough to avoid dealing no damage and b) for a game so reliant on fiddling around in menus they sure are some shitty menus.
22. Samorost 3 | PC | 3rd Sept | 5h | ★★★★☆
Samorost 3 had all the things I love about Amanita Design's games: delightful interactions with curious environments, adorable animations, surreal humour and a stellar soundtrack from Tomáš Dvořák. I particularly enjoyed the protagonist imitating noises on his horn improv jazz style.
23. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory | PC | 6th Sept | 14h | ★★☆☆☆
I liked the Mission Impossible vibe and Sam Fisher's sardonic attitude. However, I don't think I understood the point of this game. Walk slowly, choke out a guard, walk slowly, choke out a guard, hack a terminal. Thief 1 and 2's core design starts with this foundation but distinguishes itself by expanding the experience with meaningful resource management and risk-reward choices in how you use your bag of tricks to navigate non-linear environments.
24. Sonic Mania | Switch | 16th Sept | 6h | ★★★☆☆
A consumate homage to the classic Megadrive games. Some pretty good music and relatively good flow to the levels but I'm not sure that the Sonic franchise ever really had a flawless gameplay formula. Some frustrating boss battles. I really didn't enjoy the secret final final super Sonic boss.
25. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One | PS3 | 16st Sept | 11h | ★★★★☆
A really solid co-op experience. And a substantial one at that too. Plenty of levels with their own unique gameplay gimmick and plenty of destructive tools. We eventually discovered the unstoppable power of combining the beams of multiple Critter Strikes. Turning bosses into giant pigs never got old. Turning swarms of enemy robots into a sea of fire-breathing hell-pigs never got old. More Cpt Quark and Nefarious is always a good thing.
26. Castlevania IV | SNES | 30th Sept | 5h | ★★★☆☆
My expectations were high after playing Rondo of Blood as my first Classicvania the other month and, unfortunately, Castlevania IV just didn't quite have the same magic for me. Slightly lack-lustre visual design and mediocre music (that jazzy Submerged City track was ambitious but ended up feeling like some kind of keyboard cat Thelonious Monk). Sub-weapons seemed extremely rare. Way too easy up until an extreme difficulty spike in the boss rush leading up to Dracula. And I'm just going to come out and say it: tickling enemies with the droopy whip looked dumb and felt silly.
That being said, Castlevania has some solid base gameplay: whipping enemies, dodging attacks and utilising the right sub-weapon for the situation. So I had fun overall.
27. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 | Megadrive | 1st Oct | 2h | ★★★★☆
A replay of a classic. I feel like the first few levels of this one flow better in terms of level design than anywhere else in the series. Something about how you find yourself bouncing from enemy to enemy. Maybe the difficulty is tuned just about right for how fast you can reasonably react with such a small viewport.
28. Suikoden 2 | VITA | 3rd Oct | 40.5h | ★★★★☆
I finally understand the praise. Recruiting soldiers, growing your castle, wanting to kill the shit out of Luca Blight. What a good jrpg.
In fact, Suikoden 2 had one of the few turn-based combat systems that I've genuinely enjoyed in a long while. And I think that's largely down to its rapid pace. Instead of dwelling on lengthy individual attack animations, attacks come out in rapid succession, often firing-off simultaneously. Regarding pace, the events of the story also rattle along at a decent speed with characters joining and leaving and areas of the map opening and closing. There are a number of powerful moments in the story and I loved how the bonds between the primary protagonists are reflected by their synergy in combat.
My main criticism is that most of the soundtrack is painfully obnoxious, specifically pretty much any tune that plays while in a town or the castle. Thankfully the battle themes and the track that plays during any emotionally significant moment are all really strong so it's easy to put some other music on while playing. Also, what the hell happened to the localisation in and around Tinto? It's like they didn't have time to localise the literal translation and it ends up sounding like Half Life 2 Full Life Consequences. I didn't mind too much though, it was kind of hilarious.
29. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon | GBA | 13th Oct | 10.5h | ★★★★★
A replay of my favourite Igavania, ironically not directed by Igarashi. Tight controls, challenging encounters and an amazingly diverse magic system to explore. Cruising around with double runspeed, the Roc Wing and a close familiarity of the layout of Dracula's castle results in some seriously satisfying flow. I can't believe no other game has copied the Battle Arena. Probably my favourite part of CotM.
Two criticism I have: vanishingly small drop rates make some items not worth farming for and the run animation is kind of lame.
30. Professor Layton and the Curious Village | NDS | 14th Oct | 12h | ★★★★★
Absolutely charming and refreshingly placid. I was initially concerned that the majority of the puzzles were going to be trick questions after a slew of them near the start but there ended up being a good range of questions. A perfect game to play in short bursts. A true gentlemen never checks online for puzzle solutions.